INDIANA JONES AND THE PUMPKIN

“YOU’RE RENTAL ARREARS are three months behind, you now owe $3,240.00 – please pay immedately. We are now beginning LEGAL PROCEEDINGS,” I read in my email inbox.

"Indiana Jones would have never have had to deal with this bullshit," I thought. And then I felt hungry. All I owned was a pumpkin. I thought about walking up to the bakery to ask if they were throwing anything away because it was nearly their closing time but instead I got up, cut the pumpkin straight in half and put it inside the oven, straight on the slats.

"Maybe I could have traded the pumpkin for different food," I thought, "but nah, they already have a supplier and my pumpkin is already… ah dammit, I already owe them over fifty bucks too, for coffee; but damn that coffee is sweet," I continued to think.

I turned back on the Indian Jones film. Nazis were speeding around in boats and everyone was drastically searching for a book and there were sleights of hand going on everywhere – even a revolving door. "This is excellent," I thought. "I’m going to buy a hat tomorrow, just like Indiana Jones." Then I remembered tomorrow never really comes.

The pumpkin in the oven began to keep me warm in my little unit. I took off my jacket and scarf and sat down and watched the film more.

"Maybe I’ll be able to turn that pumpkin into pumpkin soup," I wondered. Then a cat that I don’t own scratched at the door. I let him in and he ran inside a box. He lay in there while I watched on.

An hour or whatever passed and I needed to used the bathroom. Then the cat got up and walked up to the door and looked at me watching the film. I got up and opened the door for him, "I guess he’s gotta go too, I thought – maybe we’re in tune." I thought.

Then the phone rang "This is the gas company – this call is being recorded for quality and coaching purposes, Is this Luke? You are $1,245.36 in debt to us…"

“I don’t agree to the call being recorded.” I said.

“Um, is this Luke?”

“Yes”

“I don’t have the power to not record the phone conversation”

“I do.” I said and hung up.

So anyways, after the bathroom adventure I was back to the film. "Oh! Mysterious documents! A man in a suspicious looking car! Maps and tablets of stone and references to kings of old, all searching for the cup of Christ!"

There was a knock at the door. I got up and opened it. No one was there, but there was a book in a box on the doormat. "I don’t even remember ordering this," I thought and placed in on the sideboard.

"Won’t anybody leave me alone? I’m unemployed and even that’s a full time job." I clicked the film back on. And took a big sip from a cold cup of coffee that had been sitting half drunk on a dirty piece of furniture that sat in front of me which I’d found on the street a week prior. The coffee had been sitting there for the last seven hours – I checked my watch. Even though I don’t have a job, I keep a very strict schedule.

A man in the car said "Germany has declared war on the Jones Boys!" and he reached into his jacket pocket while sitting in the back seat of a car. A Nazi peering in the back door at the man and started laughing an evil laugh with wrinkles at the sides of his blue eyes and yellow teeth. The pumpkin roasted away in the oven making popping sounds. "Probably should have removed the seeds," I thought.

Jones and his Dad were tied together in front of a fire. I looked at the oven and imagined myself in ropes. "How am I gunna get out of this one," I thought, "wait, how are they gunna get outta this one?" Indiana Jones started yelling "Dad! Dad! DAD! Head to the fireplace!" And they shuffled, tied together on two wooden chairs toward the fireplace. The whole room was going up in flames.

Sean Connery quickly commented in a perfect actor’s voice "our situation has not improved." I took another sip of the coffee and watched on hoping no one would interrupt me for a bit. At least enough to finish the last of the film; there was only 1:00:56 left to go by my count.

"THIS IS INTOLERABLE!" said Sean.

"Certainly is!" I thought.

"THERE’S GOTTA BE A SECRET DOOR!" Cried Indy.

I wished I had a secret door. A secret door to foodland. I got up and checked the pumpkin. The two halves were fine, just like Sean and his Dad were gunna be, and the pumpkin kept roasting away as I closed door.

"A solution presents itself." said Sean and I kept watching. Sean later slapped Indiana across the face and said "that was for blasphemy."

“I never understood it Dad, neither did Mom” said Indy.

“Oh yes she did” said Sean in a direct tone. “Only too well.”

I wished Sean Connery hadn’t stopped acting in films. His last was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which was a terrible flop apparently. I’ve never seen it but I’ve read it. Old Mr Moore never wanted it turned into a film and Ol’ Sean gave it all way after acting in it. I guess he thought it was all enough and didn’t want go on doing it and see himself become the villain. I thought about his parts in Highlander and Zardoz and then I thought about Edinburgh and the photos I’d seen of it.

I’ve always wanted a real Scottish fisherman’s knitted woollen cardigan. They’re 500 bucks or something. One day I’ll get one. They used to make them colour coded so if a Scottish fisherman drowned they’d know his clan by the colour of his cardigan. Man, I wish I hand one of those now, I thought.

Then I remembered I was just fine. The roasting pumpkin was keeping me just warm enough and I had everything I needed. Everyone who was annoying me for money wanted it; not me though.

But do they need it? I didn’t even wonder to myself, and kept watchin’ Ol’ Indy and his old man adventure all over the world, riding motorbikes; and doing whatever else it is they do in those films.